How Cornel West would handle today’s campus conflict

Dec 18, 2023

With help from Mackenzie Wilkes

Cornel West is shown.

Cornel West | Francis Chung/POLITICO

TIME FOR A REAL CONVERSATION — Cornel West acknowledges the Israel-Hamas war has left the academic cathedral where he built his career facing a “grim and dim moment.” But this professor and provocateur does not want you to give up on higher education just yet.

— Once described as “the most exciting black American scholar ever”, West is currently hunting for a fallback gig as an upstart presidential candidate. His perch at Harvard disintegrated in 2021 after West said he was denied tenure, perhaps because of his staunch support for Palestinians.

— Yet even as he muses about harnessing the youth vote and rejecting the label of a campaign “spoiler”, the academic is clearly troubled by how war is affecting free exchange on campus.

— “Our universities these days are just so feeble, and so corporatized and so commodified,” West said during a wide-ranging conversation with POLITICO reporters and editors.

— “You upset the donors, you upset the benefactors, and the big-money people — and they think they can dictate to you who’s going to be president, what kind of professors you have, [and] put their names on buildings,” he said. “And you end up with the university looking like Congress: sites of legalized bribery and normalized corruption.”

— West’s characteristically unsparing criticism arrived as turmoil over the war continues to churn through Washington.

— The House last week approved a nonbinding measure to condemn antisemitism on college campuses and urge Harvard President Claudine Gay and MIT President Sally Kornbluth to resign. A Senate panel advanced legislation that would strip research funds from schools that promote antisemitism. And advisers to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas recommended a broader federal response to turn down the heat.

— West said college presidents leaned too much on “lawyerly advice” to handle conservative lawmakers earlier this month.

— “So you can’t speak your mind, you can’t speak your convictions, you can’t say what you mean and mean what you say. You’ve got to be this professional, lawyerly-like president that tries to walk on a tightrope,” West said. “That’s weak-ass, pre-sweetened Kool-Aid.”

— “That weakness,” he added, “Is part of deeper, structural, institutional realities of commodified universities where it’s difficult to have a robust conversation.”

— True to form, West wants a robust conversation. He called on college presidents — and his fellow professors — to act as moral leaders who encourage opposing communities to learn to sit together, and respectfully discuss their differences with the understanding that conflict and impasse are sometimes inevitable.

— “A place like Harvard has to have a serious discussion about occupation, domination, anti-Jewish hatred, anti-Palestinian hatred, and have a candid exchange as to how you understand it,” West said. “And if you can’t have enough bonds of trust, then you’re not going to have a candid conversation — and you end up with just superficial chitchat, and the polarization sets in even deeper.”

IT’S MONDAY, DEC. 18. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. A prominent think tank that has recently been tied to a growing influence network backed by tech billionaires played a key role in drafting President Joe Biden’s new executive order on artificial intelligence.

Reach out with tips to today’s host at jperez@politico.com and also my colleagues Michael Stratford (mstratford@politico.com), Bianca Quilantan (bquilantan@politico.com) and Mackenzie Wilkes (mwilkes@politico.com). And don’t forget to follow us @Morning_Edu and @POLITICOPro.

POLITICO AT CES® 2024: We are going ALL IN On at CES 2024 with a special edition of the POLITICO Digital Future Daily newsletter. The CES-focused newsletter will take you inside the most powerful tech event in the world, featuring revolutionary products that cut across verticals, and insights from industry leaders that are shaping the future of innovation. The newsletter runs from Jan. 9-12 and will focus on the public policy-related aspects of the gathering. Sign up today to receive exclusive coverage of the show.

Want to receive this newsletter every weekday? Subscribe to POLITICO Pro. You’ll also receive daily policy news and other intelligence you need to act on the day’s biggest stories.

Higher Education

Miguel Cardona listens.

Education Secretary Miguel Cardona | Evan Vucci/AP

PAYBACK BLUES — About 40 percent of federal student loan borrowers missed their first monthly payment this fall as the unprecedented pandemic-era freeze on student debt expired, the Biden administration announced on Friday.

— The new data suggests that borrowers are experiencing a significantly higher level of delinquency and distress than they did before the pandemic, POLITICO’s Michael Stratford reports. And the data confirms that millions of Americans are relying on a temporary, safety net program that the Biden administration created to help borrowers who struggle to make payments.

— The Education Department emphasized that a majority of borrowers successfully paid their first monthly payment. About 60 percent of borrowers — some 13.2 million people — who owed a payment in October made the payment by the middle of last month, according to the department.

— Yet of the approximately 22 million borrowers who had a payment due at some point in October, roughly 8.8 million of them had failed to make their payment by the middle of November. That’s a much higher rate of missing payments than the same stretch of time in the months leading up to the pandemic.

— The new data shows millions of borrowers are availing themselves of government flexibility that officials have dubbed the “on-ramp” to repayment.

— The Education Department will not report borrowers as delinquent to credit bureaus through the end of next September as part of that policy, though interest will continue to accrue on their debt. The department is also postponing the most drastic tools it has to collect debt, such as garnishing wages or seizing tax refunds and Social Security benefits.

— Those forbearance policies mean that most federal student loan borrowers will not be deemed delinquent on their debts, even if they don’t pay, until the end of 2024. Borrowers would not default on their debts until fall 2025 at the earliest.

In Congress

Claudine Gay, Harvard president, wears commencement regalia and speaks at a podium.

Claudine Gay | Steven Senne/AP

‘I DEFINITELY SUPPORT THESE WOMEN’ — Challenges still lie ahead for the college presidents who have so far survived in office after they were hauled to Capitol Hill for an intense hearing about campus antisemitism.

— Former University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill resigned in the wake of this month’s hearing after leading the institution for over a year. At MIT, its board is standing behind Sally Kornbluth, whose presidency will hit the one-year mark in January. Harvard’s governing board said it is backing Claudine Gay, who took office in July as the institution’s first Black president.

— Still, Rep. Lucy McBath (D-Ga.), who sits on the House education committee, said there have not been any conversations in the Congressional Black Caucus on whether the group should take a public stance regarding Gay or any other other presidents.

— “I think everyone is going to be left to make their own decisions,” about whether or not to voice support for Gay and the other presidents, McBath said in a brief interview.

— “I definitely support these women in their ability to be able to direct and do everything that they need to do on campus to officiate on campus and to help govern the matriculation of the students, but I don't envy those decisions that they have to make, not whatsoever,” said McBath, who serves as secretary of the Black caucus.

— McBath added the presidents are “responsible for protecting all of their students and protecting their ability to be able to matriculate without any types of discrimination and bigotry.”

K-12

WHAT VOTERS WANT — Voters’ top education priorities include teaching students real-world skills and ensuring children read at grade level in schools that are free of guns, violence and bullying, according to newly-released polling from The Hunt Institute.

— Voters and parents see major roles for both teachers and parents in determining curriculum and what is taught in the classroom, per findings pulled from a nationwide survey of likely 2024 voters administered by Lake Research Partners this summer. But they are more concerned with investing in education and ensuring resources are available to students and families than they are with divisive wedge issues.

— The survey’s detailed findings instead suggest what The Hunt Institute describes as “significant alignment” among voters and parents around “core values” in education. Survey respondents favored proposals such as increasing job skills and training educators and other school personnel to address mental health concerns.

— So too were school vouchers and education savings accounts among voters nationwide, though the survey concluded “intense support remains limited for both concepts.” Fifty-six percent supported ESAs, and 49 percent supported vouchers.

— Support for the idea of increasing teacher salaries declined when the prospect of increased taxes was included, though majorities across racial groups and metro areas favored the idea even when higher taxes were on the table.

GLOBAL PLAYBOOK IS TAKING YOU TO DAVOS! Unlock the insider's guide to one of the world's most influential gatherings as POLITICO's Global Playbook takes you behind the scenes of the 2024 World Economic Forum. Author Suzanne Lynch will be on the ground in the Swiss Alps, bringing you the exclusive conversations, shifting power dynamics and groundbreaking ideas shaping the agenda in Davos. Stay in the know with POLITICO's Global Playbook, your VIP pass to the world’s most influential gatherings. SUBSCRIBE NOW.

Syllabus

— Lead NAEP official faces scrutiny over improper spending alleged at North Carolina charter school: Education Week

— Donors, alumni helped take down an Ivy League president. Is this a moment or a movement? The Wall Street Journal

— Feeling alone and estranged, many Jews at Harvard wonder what’s next: The New York Times

— The economics of small U.S. colleges are faltering: Bloomberg

Follow us on Twitter